Sand Pilferer

Full Description
A sandy, tan beetle, able to blend in with the sand well. It has six strong legs and a curved shovel-like front carapace.
Small, black eyes on either side are able to see above and around the face shield. Small mandibles are set below and move close and under the head making the movement of the against ground easier.
A pilferer uses its own excretions, a strong glue from under its mandibles to make small bits of grain hold together, slowly growing, adding to the grouping until a small ball is made. From this the beetle will add dung, vegetable matter, and filth with which to attract flies and other micro prey, extracting maggots and other feeders as a food source all the while adding glue and sand in a regular path. Now what sets this desert dweller apart from other scarabs is his ability to work with others. A large group of pilferers can be found with massive spheres much larger then a man, and riddled with holes. Even while rolling, the creatures choose not to glue spaces, leaving nooks which others use as homes so that they travel with the ball.
These sandy spheres hold up well against the winds and erosion of the desert so much so that generations of pilferers will work on a single ball.The smoothness is unrivaled and the strength amazing. 
When a ball is found without a thriving population of pilferers it is often left to be recovered by the desert, but mostly because they are heavy and hard to transport.
There is a tale of a large ball made from a hundred dunes that once rolled over a kingdom taking the stones and all into it and continued to travel the desert with the townsfolk inside.

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